New Members Always Welcome
by HGF88
Summary: Motherboard needs help, in the form of new additions to the team.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, Zo, you mind giving me a hand with this?" I needed to work through my code, and my roommate and fellow Computer Science major was the closest available person to bounce my ideas off of.

"Sure, what's the problem?"

I showed her the error. "No matter what I do, this ellipse never shows up when I compile and run. Maybe I forgot to draw it…"

"No, you've got it right here, (leftEye);. I think… yeah, try swapping the leftEye block of code with the head block."

I did as she suggested. Compile. Run. The character's left eye appeared on the screen.

"Success!" I cheered. I put my hand up for a high-five, and she followed through. I thanked her and turned back to my code. My mouse lagged. Majorly.

My mouse never lags here.

Suddenly and seamlessly, a face formed on my screen. A woman's face, made of a square head and a neck connecting her chin to the bottom edge of the monitor. One eye was a rectangle, the other a circle, their whites an orange-yellow and her irises blue. Below them was a triangular nose followed by… unnatural-looking lips. Her cheekbones were replaced with an outline of half a circle and what I only had time to process as a serial number. Her wavy hair and curled bangs, as well as her eyebrows, were faintly decorated with lines. All in all, she reminded me of a computer's motherboard.

After about a second, she spoke. "Hello. My name is Motherboard, ruler of Cyberspace. I am assembling a team of programmers to help keep me online. I have chosen you as a member. Do you accept?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Hurry! I have been weakened by a virus and don't have much longer to speak before I crash again."

"Yeah! Come on, Marie, it'll be fun!"

"Ugh… okay, fine. I know this is gonna bite me in the ass later, but sure, why not? Might as well be my motto by now."

Her image faded, giving way to a glowing portal. It pulled us off our beds and into a vortex of swirling math symbols and Java commands. We landed with a thud in front of a control panel and a huge television monitor hanging down from the ceiling. Three guys were already there. A few seconds later, another woman tumbled through the monitor.

After a few beats of silence, I said out loud, "Alright, fine, I guess I'll bite. What the fuck?"

Another short pause. Nobody knew.

I responded. "Well, I suppose we should introduce ourselves, right? We'll go first - I'm Marie Boyle."

Zoe introduced herself. "I'm Zoe Mearle.

Finally, the last member introduced himself in American Sign Language, which Zoe translated, as Kyle Lin.

I didn't know she knew ASL. Then again, I'm not sure she knows I'm learning Icelandic, so I guess we're even.

Moments later, an old man with a lightbulb for a hat burst through the door with a milk crate full of what seemed to be just odds and ends, panting heavily. "Name's - Marbles - Motherboard said - give - you - these." He put the crate down and kneeled beside it, handing each one of us a black backpack with our names on them. Each of us gave a quick thank-you as he handed them out.

"You - you can open the bag - bags now, if you want," he said, regaining his breath. He must have read my mind. With the green light, we all opened them, with Zoe being an exception - she'd started tearing through it the instant Marbles's hand let go of the thing. Inside each bag was an over-decorated blue calculator, a watch with an orange button on the side, and a sealed white envelope labeled "250 Snelfus" in chickenscratchy handwriting.

"What are these things? A calculator, a watch, an envelope of… something? Who are you?" Kyle asked.

"I'm Dr. Marbles, inventor and overall caretaker of Motherboard. The Snelfu is our base unit of currency - analogous to, say, a United States dollar. Those watches are a new invention of mine - they create portals themselves without depending on Motherboard. I hope you all don't mind being my guinea pigs for the devices. That last device, however, is more than a calculator. Much more, in fact - it is a calculator, a diagram creator, and a communication device, among other things."

Zoe piped up. "So… it's a smartphone?"

"I suppose so, though the Cybersquad tell me that there's no reception here, whatever that means," Marbles explained.

"Speaking of which," I said, "what _is_ 'here'? Where are we? And who's the Cybersquad?"

"In short, Cyberspace is our own little universe, hosted on a network of computers. As for the Cybersquad - what appropriate timing! I believe they're on their way now."

Just as he finished his sentence, the automated doors into the central control room slid open, and through them walked three teens, two about sixteen and one no more than fourteen. One of them, a redheaded, pale sixteen-year-old asked, "Hey, Doc. Who're they?"

"Oh, hello, Matt. These are Marie -" - I waved - "Zoe - " - she waved - "and Kyle." Kyle signed "hello!". Marbles continued, "And for the new members, this is Matt -" - the boy in the dirty green sweater waved - "Inez" - the fourteen-year-old Latina in a pink tee under a purple vest waved - "and Jackie -" - the black girl, about Matt's age, clad in yellow and denim, waved.

"From here on, you will be split into three teams," he informed us. "Inez and Kyle, Alfa team; Jackie and Zoe, Bravo team; and Matt and Marie, Charlie team. Alfa, you are simply to keep Cybersites safe if need be. Bravo, you are to find and dispatch allies of Hacker to ensure a lack of capacity for riot. Charlie, you are to find and confront Hacker and bring him here. I _highly_ recommend the use of handcuffs and ankle cuffs. Go, now! Cyberspace needs you!"

He pressed a button on his own Skwakpad and a door opened to a small garage with three hovercars, each pair boarding their own. I had no clue how the hell to drive this thing, but my feet drove me toward the door of the driver's seat anyway. Matt climbed into the passenger's seat, wasting no time. I looked back at Zoe one last time, and she looked back at me.

"See ya later, Zo." The words flowed out of my mouth like they always do when one or both of us leave the apartment to go somewhere. This time, though… this time, it felt different. It felt lonely. I knew she wasn't going to die without a damn strong fight, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was going to lose her somehow.

"See ya later, Mar. - Stay strong for me, 'kay?"

I bit my lip and nodded, quickly turning my head. I got into the car and slammed the door. I tried to fight the tears, but they wouldn't leave me alone. I wiped them away, dried my glasses on my shirt, and fumbled for the key. I realized that it was already in the ignition slot and turned, so I stepped on the gas and propelled the vehicle into the empty sky - a scene that looked more like a greenish chalkboard peppered with chalk dots.

* * *

I think I backed myself into a corner with that interaction.


	2. Chapter 2

**PERSPECTIVE: MARIE**

I broke the long, heavy silence. "Hey, Matt, you have any idea where we're going?"

"Piece of garbage could be anywhere. Hell, he could be _every_ where."

"So… you have no idea?"

"Well… I didn't say _that_ ," he shot back.

I gave a small sigh. "Where's the most likely place he could be? We'll check there, then the next likeliest, and so on."

"Well, he was banished to the Northern Frontier."

"Good, we'll start there. Is there some sort of GPS on the Skwakpads?"

"Yeah, uh, here, lemme see." Matt took out his device and fiddled with the buttons, and a freckled hologram popped up. "The solid green dot is the endpoint, the destination - in this case, the Northern Frontier - and the flashing red dot is the 'pad. The gray dots are other Cybersites."

"So, how far is it from where we are now to the Northern Frontier?" I asked.

"At this speed, we'll be there in about… an hour and a half. Go a bit higher, though, and a little to left. Er, no, right."

I tilted the ship up and to the left as he instructed, and his timing was impeccable - ninety minutes and twelve seconds. I landed the ship near the site's domain marker (er, sign), about half a mile from what seemed to be the only sign of inhabitation - a large, very basic garage structure, like a soup can laid on its side and cut in half.

Without even opening the door, Matt muttered a cuss under his breath. "He's not here. We have to look somewhere else."

"How do you know? Where's his house?"

"Doesn't really have one, he lives in a sort of… high-end trailer. Now, come on, we gotta go!"

"Go _where_ , though? I don't even know what this guy looks like! Who is he? What's his deal? Why should I give a damn-"

Matt cut me off. "Do you _want_ to be locked in a car with an angry Matt?"

I didn't respond. It just seemed like a waste, and anyway… I didn't want to admit that no, it didn't seem all that pleasant. I started up the engine and backed out of the site. He plugged in our next most likely destination, though I couldn't see what he was typing.

After a short silence, I had to ask. I couldn't let it go. "What the hell is Cyberspace, anyway? Is it… is it the internet? Is it a subset of it? What?"

He sighed. "Well, yes and no. It's… it's more of a parallel universe that's hidden in the cracks of the Internet, all the unclaimed domains, the discontinued websites and chatrooms. Like an underwater river. That's how I explain it to myself, anyway."

"Kind of like the Mariana's Web?"

"Oh, deeper. Much deeper."

"So this is what the One-World Government doesn't want us to see…" I joked. "So what about this Hacker guy? I still have no idea who he is. And why is he called Hacker?"

"Long story short, from what I understand, he was a cyborg built by Dr. Marbles to help keep Motherboard up and running, but he got greedy and wanted to take over Cyberspace for himself. Slimy bastard. So, Marbles, being merciful, didn't kill him - he decided instead to banish him to the Northern Frontier. From there, he started carrying out schemes to try to take control by force, but so far, that hasn't worked, and we want to keep it that way. Obviously. As for the name… I'm not sure."

So Hacker had been created by Marbles to serve Motherboard… Marbles, the father, Motherboard as mother, and Hacker as the child. A family unit. The son tried to usurp power from his mother, the Queen, and so the father sent the son into exile instead of executing him. The son tries over and over to take back power - there's no room now for apologizing now, no chance. Even if all his heinous acts were erased, even if he were accepted lovingly and with open arms, he'd be left with no dignity to speak of. In an instant, something clicked.

"Marie, you okay?" Matt asked.

"Huh? Yeah - what's the closest Site to the Frontier that's got a bar? Plug it in and give me as much information about Hacker as you can-"

Suddenly, a light began flashing on the dashboard. The vehicle was low on fuel. We had to stop off somewhere _soon_.

"Sensible Flats, just ahead!"

We landed on a Site that looked straight out of a stereotypical western, from the sand and cactuses to the general store and people in cowpoke attire. For the thousandth time today, I questioned whether I was conscious.

"Hey, Matt… are you able to make calls with the Skwakpad?"


	3. Chapter 3

PERSPECTIVE: KYLE

I sat in the passenger seat as Inez started the vehicle. I buckled in and looked through my bag again as we headed out and pulled out the calculator - Skwakpad, Marbles had told us. I fiddled with it for a few minutes, finding out as much as I could about how it worked, and found a text-to-speech program. I fiddled with it, typing in random sentences and phrases, movie quotes, and song lyrics, and the device repeated it all back in an almost metallic voice, one that sounded like it was going to echo but never did.

"You know," Inez said, "you can do more with that thing than just make it say things. Did Dr. Marbles not tell you what it is?"

"He did," I typed. "It's a S - K - W - A - K - P - A - D. Calculator, encyclopedia, and more."

"So why are you just using the text to speech program? In fact, why not just talk to me?" God, Inez's voice was starting to get annoying. She sounded like she was nine.

"I already looked at the other programs, and… well, I'm mute."

"Oh… I'm so sorry. How did it happen? If you don't mind me asking, of course."

"Birth defect."

"... that's it?"

"Tree."

She avoided it cleanly, but she wouldn't let up discussion-wise. "You can't just leave me hanging like that!"

"Watch me." I sat in silence, staring out the window, thinking about when the programming might come into play, and how a scrawny high-school freshman and a mute guy could possibly manage to police the entire universe by ourselves. Hell, I didn't have a clue about anything here, rendering me dead weight. In the silence, a hill of questions were finally able to start buzzing through my head. _How big is this universe? What's it made out of? Are the laws of nature the same as the real world? Are all these floating chunks of rock supposed to be planets? If so, how come they aren't round? If they're not round, there's gotta be a change in how gravity works. Hell, maybe it's fuckin' magic, God knows._

"You hungry? I know a pretty good place to eat five minutes from where we are, if you want," Inez offered.

"Sure," I typed into the Skwak. At the same moment, an orange light started blinking on Inez's screen, and a pop-up of a video call came on. It was the Irish-looking kid, Matt, and the young woman named Marie.

The boy started speaking. "Inez, uh… Kyle, right? We're out of fuel, stuck on Sensible Flats. You mind coming over and giving us a hand?"

"We were just about to head over for lunch anyway, Mattie," Inez said.

"Mattie?" I typed. I got a light punch to the shoulder in response.

~~~]~~~

Our lunch destination turned out to be the most stereotypical "saloon" in the most stereotypical 70s-Western-television-show set to ever be a planet.

"So, icebreakers for Kyle and Marie," Matt said in response to the silence, "what's your guys's favorite time period in history?"

I hurriedly got out my Skwak and typed out a response while Marie answered - ancient Rome, I think, was her answer. "Prehistory -- nobody knows much, what we do know is fascinating! Secondary answer, ancient Mesopotamia. So full of culture we probably don't even know the half of. Third, when Rome ruled the known world." I went on a bit of a tangent - alright, a pretty big tangent - about various minute aspects, which in a roundabout way led to a heated debate (coinciding with the arrival of our food) between Matt and me about whether Greece or Rome was better - I sided with Rome, he with Greece.

At some point, Marie looked around the establishment idly, and something caught her eye. "There's a guy over there that looks… seriously different from everyone else here. No hat, kind of bulges in the chest region, chin's huge. Skin is green, somehow. Is he the guy we're looking for?"

"Sure is," Matt replied, standing up.

Inez interrupted. "Matt, wait! Just think about it for a minute. We don't have any clue of what he's planning, and without that, we have no idea how to respond to the situation!"

He sighed, sitting back down. "Nez is right. For all we know, the slimy bastard could just be ordering a drink."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Marie said. "The thinking being that if he's not out scheming, he's out drinking to escape the reality of having been disowned by his parents."

"What?" asked Matt, Inez, and I.

"Armchair psychologist. Anyway, what I was thinking we might do is that Kyle or I would go over to him to see what he's up to. He may feel a little less… condescended-to, than if a teenager with no outwardly-obvious familiarity with programming were to come up to him and try to pry the information out of him, you know? Plus, he wouldn't have any idea who we are until we tell."

"Well, you're sitting with us. Don't think it'd be too difficult to pick up on which team you're playing for," Matt returned.

"Well, it's all we've got right now," Marie said, yawning. "I'll be back… whose idea was it to not give this place a global air conditioner?"


	4. Chapter 4

**PERSPECTIVE: ZOE**

I slid into the passenger seat and buckled in, and Jackie got in the driver's seat.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"Marie's an anxious person by nature. Has to read up on all the facts about a topic before deciding something, or spend like five minutes in the cafeteria line trying to choose between a chicken taco or a pork one. Pretty much any situation she's in, she turns the options over and over in her head, always trying to be as exact as possible whenever possible."

She chuckled. "Yeah, that sounds like Inez alright.

"Anyway, who do we nab first?" I asked.

"I'd say Buzz and Delete first, but they're his henchmen, so I think they're gonna be more Matt's and Marie's territory. Next in the hierarchy is Wicked, primary antagonist, as well as resident of, the kingdom of Happily Ever After." She typed something into her Skwakpad. "We should be there in about half an hour."

"Great. In the meantime… would you mind filling me in on whatever you can tell me about this…" I gestured to the universe around us. "... place?"

WICKED'S CASTLE

What stood out immediately was the… _flamboyance_ of the castle. It was decorated all in magenta and a pinkish-lavender, with black and dark purple accents here and there, and some parts sort of stuck out, and at weird angles that shouldn't have been possible. It seemed like the only thing keeping it together was magic. It was tall, even for a castle.

"So… she designs homes for a living? I may be a lowly computer science major, but I think I could do better than this," I remarked.

" _Interior_ designer. And no, that's more of a hobby, her job is being headmistress of a magic school. Yes, like Harry Potter, but college," Jackie said.

"I never really got into Harry Potter, I'll be honest," I replied, more focused now on the size of the building. "How tall do you think it is?"

"The castle? 350 feet. Had to measure it once, used shadows, position of the sun, angles."

"Smart kid… or maybe I was just never all that good at geometry. More likely."

"Come on, though, let's try to head in," Jackie suggested. She rang the doorbell, which resulted in the muted boom of a gong that sounded at least the size of a large bedroom. Half a minute later, a redheaded woman dressed in a purple witch's costume, which contrasted with her skin so strangely that I could swear she had jaundice, answered the door.

Her voice was shrill. "Oh, an Earth brat I recognize," she said, looking pointedly at Jackie, "and one I don't. Who the hell are you?"

"Huh?" I cleared my throat. "Oh, I'm Zoe. I'm with her." I motioned to Jackie.

"Clearly. Anyway, what do you two want?"

Jackie piped up, thinking on her feet. "We figured we'd stop by and hear all about your latest projects, ma'am."

The lady perked up some, giving only about a half second of thought to letting young strangers into her house so readily, clearly excited for a chance to show off, and rushed us in. "I have some tweaks for design in various parts of Hex University, but what's really taking up a good portion of my time right now is a request from a friend of mine - he needs a room of his… how should I say it? House-car? One of the rooms in it needs to be redone completely, to fit with the rest of the whole monstrosity. So he says. Personally, I'd just re-do the entire thing, but I guess that's just my point of view…"

Wicked went on and on and _on_ for what must have been at least half an hour, more maybe, while leading us up a long, long spiral staircase in its own tower of the castle, eventually ending at a dead-end ceiling. She pulled out a wand and spoke some spell, then tapped the wand against the wood above us, and a hatch up into the tower's attic appeared. She pushed it open so that it thunked loudly against the wooden floor. As we entered the room itself, the most noticeable thing was how bland it was compared to the rest of the castle: the walls were bare stone and mortar, home to various diagrams and schematics and the like hung with tape, and the floor felt shambled together and held up only by magic… probably the case, now that I think about it.

"Well, girls, what do you think?" the witch asked, as if she expected us to understand what was going on in any sense.

"Uh… what is this all for?" I asked.

"For the Grim Wreaker! Were you not listening to me?" It was difficult to tell whether she was genuinely offended or just being sarcastic.

Gonna be honest here, I kinda zoned out - next thing I remember is the hatch slamming shut, the gap between it and the floorboards sealing with magic, and Jax stomping with all her might.

 **PERSPECTIVE: MARIE**

The smell was what hit me first: copper, burnt hair, and wax, not counting the alcohol in front of him. Upon closer inspection, his skin was the color of avocado, as I'd seen before, but it had a shine to it that made him look like a spray-painted soda can that's been rolling around on the side of the road for weeks, and now I was able to get a better look at the rest of him - his body shape was like a beer bottle flipped upside down, and his eyes seemed to bulge. The hair on his head was no doubt a wig with how unnatural it looked, even accounting for the rest of him. (I still couldn't wholly believe I wasn't dreaming - I still can't, even now.) He was staring at the wood under his hands, tracing the grains with his fingernails. He seemed so deep in thought that I couldn't tell whether he knew I was there until he spoke up.

"What do you want, you overgrown Earth brat?" His attitude was like vinegar.

"Calm down. I just want to talk," I said, not needing to fake a bit of exhaustion.

"Hmph… what about, huh? You want to pick my brain for my next plot against Motherboard? Ha! Even if I had one, why by _code_ would I tell _you_?"

"You have a point…" I pulled out a piece of gum. Bad habit, but it can be helpful when I need to think something over. "Well, is there anything you _would_ like to talk about?"

He gave it some thought, then began to speak, but at just the same moment something in his pocket started going off, like an alarm. He pulled out what I could only assume to be a cell phone, or its equivalent, and rolled his eyes and audibly sighed when he saw the number that was calling.

"Hello, Wicked, my dear… What? What's that? Slow down, slow - you've got an infestation of mirth rats? Well, I'm not so sure I - oh, yes, of course." He paused for a moment, and a vicious smile grew on his face. He slid off the barstool, mumbling 'hmm's and 'yes, yes'es and the like. "I'll be right over… and I'll bring the rest of their _party_ with me." He pulled me by the wrist to the door, and motioned over to the others still in the booth to follow, apparently confused by their uncertainty regarding whether or not to try and at least keep me safe from the avocado Tin Man. In fairness, this isn't the kind of thing that happens often. At all, really, to anyone, minus us six.


End file.
